Tuesday, July 31, 2007

So, maybe, just maybe, we have our priorities wrong. Perhaps cheapening the vote by requiring little more than an active pulse (Chicago famously waives this rule) has turned it into something many people don't value. Maybe the emphasis on getting more people to vote has dumbed-down our democracy by pushing participation onto people uninterested in such things. Maybe our society would be healthier if politicians aimed higher than the lowest common denominator. Maybe the opinions of people who don't know the first thing about how our system works aren't the folks who should be driving our politics, just as people who don't know how to drive shouldn't have a driver's license.

Instead of making it easier to vote, maybe we should be making it harder. Why not test people about the basic functions of government? Immigrants have to pass a test to vote; why not all citizens?

Despite Pantload's tepid protestations to the contrary, it's obvious that he believes that instituting poll tests would result in fewer Democrats being allowed to vote. (This is Lucianne's little boy we're talking about.) And that just isn't true:

The Center for Policy Attitudes, along with Knowledge Networks Poll, recently completed a study that illustrates that the more Americans watch FOX “News” channel, the more tenuous their relationship is to the truth. In fact, the results show FOX “News” channel is in a virtual free fall away from facts.

“Standing out in the analysis are Fox and NPR/PBS—but for opposite reasons. Fox was the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions. NPR/PBS are notable because their viewers and listeners consistently held fewer misperceptions than respondents who obtained their information from other news sources.”

But you already knew that didn't you? And unsurprisingly, Goldberg didn't.

He also seems to think that those who are interested in politics are better informed.